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"Michael Strahan was the anchor of the Giants defense for the better part of
two decades and is now coming to the aid of former teammate Eli Manning.

One day after former Giants wide receiver Amani Toomer claimed that Cowboys
QB Tony Romo was a better quarterback that Eli Manning, Strahan took to the
airwaves to defend the two-time Super Bowl MVP.

“You need to check [Toomer’s] house for bath salts,” Strahan said on the Hill
and Schlereth Show on ESPN Radio. “I haven’t heard anything, but that’s
surprising to hear. Somebody’s always better than the next.”

Strahan, who was teammates with both Manning and Toomer during the Giants’
Super Bowl run in 2007, said he would rather let the players’ accomplishments
speak for themselves.

“I just look at what people have done in their careers when it comes to the
numbers and the things they’ve done to excel and where they are right now,”
Strahan said. “I look at Eli and I think he’s the only two-time [Super Bowl]
winning quarterback in the league who gets less respect than anybody else.”

Strahan, who was teammates with Manning from 2004-08, said that Eli’s critics
may overlook him due to the way he goes about playing his position.

“I think maybe it’s his demeanor, maybe it’s just the way he goes about his
business,” Strahan said. “It’s not showy and it doesn’t look fancy and it’s not
extravagant looking but you know what, numbers don’t lie, people do.”

The Giants all-time leader in sacks also credited Manning for believing in
himself and transforming into a franchise quarterback.

“The talent level was always there, he could always make all of the throws he
just has such a high level of confidence right now,” Strahan said. “The Eli
Manning that the Giants have now is the quarterback that they hoped they
drafted, that they expected when they drafted.

“His confidence is through the roof, totally different than when I was
there.”

Herzlich maintains clarity on what happened to him and the team during the
2011 regular season, but says the Giants are steadfast in remembering a horrible
four-game losing streak that preempted most media outlets, other teams and even
some Giants fans to write epitaphs on Big Blue prematurely.

“I think that as amazing as last year was there is still a bitter taste in
our mouth from that four game stretch where we lost. Everyone really remembers
that feeling all too well and playing just for survival just to get into the
playoffs and just to do that type of thing, that’s not where we want to be at
half way through the season. We want to put ourselves in position earlier to get
that playoff spot and then to repeat what we did last year at the end of the
season.” Herzlich said in an interview with WEEI in Boston.

#58 is coming into 2012 training camp with more than determination. Mark
will travel up to Albany with the mindset that the starting position of Mike
linebacker is his for the taking.

“It’s mine for the taking,” Herzlich said in April. “I wish the best for
everybody else, but it’s still a competition. I want the team to do well, and if
it’s not the spot that the coaches want me in, then that’s one thing. But the
way I look at it is, there is a place that I can play and I don’t want anyone to
take that away from me.”

From the top—head coach Tom
Coughlin—the feelings trickle down unchanged: The need to improve is always
there. The Giants finished with a 9-7 record. Mark
Herzlich finished his rookie season with 12 tackles recorded in 11 games
played. Both statements clearly share similarities and parallels in the fact
that there’s definite progress to be had according the clipboard agenda for the
virulent G-Men. They’re a resilient bunch that has used the adversity mantra to
death. This time, the playbook seems to have a new play call in it that comes
from unsettled and unresolved feelings about how the players and coaches (as
well as the front office) look back on how 2011 really went down.

Don’t be surprised if the World Champions come out with massive chips on
their shoulders as if they missed the playoffs—and play harder now. They may
seem as if they’ve something to prove to themselves more than any other along
the way."

“You need to check [Toomer’s] house for bath salts,” Strahan said on the Hill
and Schlereth Show on ESPN Radio. “I haven’t heard anything, but that’s
surprising to hear. Somebody’s always better than the next.”

Toomer spent much of his day on Friday defending his comments from Thursday, when he said on Sirius XM radio that
Romo was a better all-around quarterback than Eli. The opinion stirred up a lot
of press, and an equal number of emotionally charged comments from former Giants
teammates. In addition to Strahan, recently retired running back Derrick
Ward slammed Toomer for what he felt was a ridiculous thing to say.

"Toomer, you really don't believe Romo is a better QB than Eli is, do you?
What happened to you! Eli two SB rings, Tony Romo one playoff win," Ward tweeted. "Bottom line, Eli is a winner! I was in the
backfield with him for five years and I've seen him grow into what he is now.
I'd take Eli over Romo any day!"

Even Brandon
Jacobs and Jeremy Shockey, who was known to have a poor relationship with
Eli, weighed in on the situation .. both surprised by Toomer's comments. But
Strahan was quick to offer up an explanation as to why Manning continues to be
disrespected despite his success.

“I look at Eli and I think he’s the only two-time [Super Bowl] winning
quarterback in the league who gets less respect than anybody else," Strahan
said. "“I think maybe it’s his demeanor, maybe it’s just the way he goes about
his business. It’s not showy and it doesn’t look fancy and it’s not extravagant
looking but you know what, numbers don’t lie, people do.”

Cosell
Talks: The Evolving Chess Match : NFL Films Blog
With training camps
opening in less than a month, I’ve begun to think about what I expect to see in
the 2012 NFL season. I’m speaking more broadly, in terms of the continuing
growth of the game. It’s become axiomatic to say the NFL is a passing league.
The numbers certainly verify this statement, but there’s more to it than that. I
want to drill down deeper and put a fine focus on the transformative
relationship between offensive concepts and defensive reaction/adjustment.

The amount of support for Baas, who did not play as well as hoped during his
first season with the Giants, was a bit surprising. My guess? There is no
dominant center in the division and some of those votes are simply "I am voting
for the Giants guy" votes.

"A good old-fashioned ribbing from a former teammate, however vile, tawdry or
unsophisticated, hits home in a different way than your average pre-game
trash-talking opponent or fan critic. It stings, and not just because you played
together, but because you spent hours, days, sometimes years eating, training,
even living with each other. There’s no understating the strength of the bonds
formed in NFL locker rooms, the relationships that, theoretically at least,
transcend football and last far longer than NFL careers.

This isn’t always the case, though. Locker room relationships fluctuate on a
wide spectrum, from sincere to cordial to combative, and everything in between.
In a heated, competitive environment consisting of more than 50 players fighting
for playing time and depth chart supremacy, naturally, things get contentious,
cooperation wanes and fraternization grows sporadic. It’s an interesting
dynamic, and perhaps what makes team interactions so enthralling. Just ask HBO’s
“Hard Knocks”, whose popularity is based almost entirely on these developments.
In some cases, players form strong friendships with other players whose single
outstanding purpose is ensuring their new cohorts’ demise. This is the sort of
unhealthy partnership that intuitively shouldn’t work, and the best example is
the classic quarterback-in-waiting scenario, where a starting, veteran
quarterback is charged with mentoring, nurturing and preparing a younger
quarterback until he’s ready to take over. The process is never frowned upon,
because, well, the younger quarterback is the future! Never mind the veteran
quarterback who still, contrary to popular belief, wants to continue his career
and would rather not lose his job, much less to a player he’s being asked to
tutor in the first place.

And yet, most teams figure out how to make it
work. The calculus is never easy, but in most cases even conflicting
personalities and minor feuds have a way of resolving themselves. Locker room
infighting is far from the norm, and players have a way of minimizing
controversy when there are games to be played, non-guaranteed contracts to be
earned. When players retire or switch teams—whether by trade, free agency or
one’s own volition—things change. Sometimes guys leave teams on a poor note,
bridges burned, while others depart with a greater appreciation for their former
teammates.

At this point, you’re probably wondering when this boring, drawn-out
monologue on life in the NFL will end and how it relates to Amani Toomer’s recent comments about Giants quarterback Eli Manning. If you haven’t already heard Toomer’s notorious
radio interview, here are two of the more interesting morsels generating quite a
bit of discussion:

“Tony Romo is probably, if you look at it statistically, he’s
probably the best quarterback in the NFC East,” Toomer said while co-hosting
Movin’ the Chains on SiriusXM NFL Radio. “You look at Eli Manning and what he
does in the fourth quarter, but you talk about consistency, talking about 31
touchdowns and 10 interceptions, that guy can play.”

“I’m talking about, for me, if I wanted a guy that is going to throw less
interceptions and be more productive, higher completion percentage, I’m going to
go with Tony Romo.”

As heretical as it may seem, there’s nothing wrong with Toomer’s
statement. Everybody is subject to their own opinion, and if Toomer truly
believes Romo is a better quarterback than Eli Manning, he is completely within
his rights to say so. No harm done. A couple of Cowboys fans I go to school with
make this argument time and again, even after the events of last season, and I
normally just brush it off and chalk it up to “America’s team-delusion”, or
something like that. Toomer is not—unless I’m missing something—a Cowboys fan,
not in the least bit. He spent nearly his entire NFL career with one of Dallas’
main rivals and almost certainly factored largely into the Cowboys’ declining
success over the past decade. He played a key rolein Big
Blue’s upset victory over the one-seeded Cowboys in the divisional round of the
2007 playoffs. He watched as Manning morphed from an insecure, gun-shy rookie to
a Super Bowl winning quarterback, even partook in that development and
maturation. He witnessed Manning outduel Romo on numerous occasions, in the
regular season and postseason. And after all of that, his opinion—even as
Co-host Tim Ryan pushed him to the pro-Manning consenses—was firm, unwavering:
Romo > Manning.

This brings me back to my rant on the NFL team dynamic, and the relationships
that either last, fracture or are slightly altered after a player switches teams
or leaves the game. Toomer doesn’t owe Eli, a former teammate, much of anything
at all. His job as an NFL analyst requires objectivity and a detached, unbiased
view of the league, past team affiliations be damned. But as a player whose
individual and team success is grounded so strongly in Manning’s
accomplishments, you’d think Toomer would side with his former quarterback,
rather than endorse a rival qb in his stead. NFL player relationships are tricky
and rarely predictable, and Toomer’s comments are the latest confirmation of the
fact. Not that Manning will care, not the quarterback that, after entering last
season amid a cloud of controversy for thinking he was an “elite” quarterback,
silenced his detractors with a Super Bowl ring."http://www.giantsfootballblog.com/GIANTS GAB

"Former New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan used to make a living
terrorizing quarterbacks. Now, he seems to be content with coming to the
defense of one. At least to the defense of his former teammate, Eli Manning. One day after former wide
receiver Amani
Toomer suggested to SiriusXM radio that Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo was a better quarterback than
Eli Manning, Strahan rode to the defense of his former teammate.

Strahan, appearing on ESPN radio’s “Hill
and Schlereth Show,” said, “You need to check [Toomer’s] house for
bath salts.” Strahan explained his reasoning, “I just look at what people have
done in their careers when
it comes to the numbers and the things they’ve done to excel and where they are
right now,” Strahan said. “I look at Eli and I think he’s the only two-time
[Super Bowl] winning quarterback in the league who gets less respect than
anybody else.”

Strahan, who was teammates with Toomer for
eleven years, didn’t blast Toomer for having an opinion. Instead, he made a
quick joke referring to how wrong he thought his former teammate was in
criticizing his former quarterback. “The talent level was always there,”
Strahan said referring to Eli. “He could always make all of the throws he just
has such a high level of confidence right now. The Eli Manning that the Giants
have now is the quarterback that they hoped they drafted, that they expected
when they drafted. His confidence is through the roof, totally different than
when I was there.”

It is hard to blast Toomer for saying what
he did. If you look at the stats you will find that, during the regular season,
Tony Romo has better stats than Eli Manning. But Eli Manning is widely regarded
by many as being better than Tony Romo. Football isn’t about statistics all the
time. How many times do you see a quarterback throw for 400 yards but lose the game?
Statistics don’t tell the whole tale. But, Toomer is entitled to his opinion
and Strahan is entitled to his in defense of Eli. The reality of the situation
is, Toomer said something he didn’t believe up until he looked purely at the
statistics, and made his decision based on that. Strahan sees a quarterback
with quite the impressive resume,
resplendent with two Super Bowl MVP trophies. Neither one of Eli’s former
teammates are wrong. And you know what? Eli Manning could care less who anyone
thinks is the best quarterback in the NFC
East so long as at the end of the season the New York Giants are
sitting on top."http://www.yardbarker.com/nfl/teams/new_york_giants/56
GRANTLANDhttp://www.grantland.com/

Every year we need some (non)story to get us through the final weeks leading into training camp. I guess AT provided that story this year.

Here's to finishing off the Independence Weekend strong and safe.

[B][/quote]

[Y] We see this every year. People making predictions based on nothing factual. Once again we are not to finish better than 8 - 8, Eli is somehow not as good as Romo, rookies are going to shine, etc. I can't wait for training camp so we'll at least have some information to work with.

I remember the news coming out of training camp/pre-season last year from media heads who were able to witness very brief periods of daily practices. Many of them lamented Victor Cruz's performance creating a lot of MB hand wringing. At the same time, coaches were giving interviews painting a very different picture of Cruz's efforts in practice.

We need real football and soon lol

“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” MB Rule # 1